


We Can Be Heroes

by MightyAmphitrite



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: #JusticeforHawkeye, Action/Adventure, Coming of Age, Gen, Sonja is a huge Hunger Games fan, The Avengers (2012) Compliant, a civilian's perspective on the Battle of New York, but Hawkeye is her hero, other Avengers are only mentioned in passing, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 03:46:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14464317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MightyAmphitrite/pseuds/MightyAmphitrite
Summary: The Battle of New York shook the city to its core.But in an age of uncertainty, it also brought a fresh wave of hope.And even though Katniss Everdeen would always be Sonja’s greatest inspiration, Hawkeye was different.Because Hawkeye was real.Or: A young immigrant in the Bronx learns what it means to be a hero.





	We Can Be Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me in the car the other day, probably from all of the "Where's Hawkeye?" articles I've been reading lately. A tribute to my favorite Avenger on National Superhero Day.

**July 2010**

Sonja’s family moved to America right after her tenth birthday.

She was eleven before she made a real friend.

Her name was Katniss, and she was _amazing_. She had a distinctive name, like Sonja, but no one gave her grief for it or spelled it wrong. People were always trying to change how she spoke and dressed, or putting her in danger, but she was super tough, always standing up for what was right and fighting for her friends and family. She even had a special talent: using a bow and arrows to show people how strong she was and to keep herself safe. Sonja would have dreams now and then about Katniss coming to New York to take her on a mission in the Capital: Sonja would grab her own bow (which she always had in these dreams) and leave without looking back.

There was nothing Katniss couldn’t handle. Just going to school and talking to people were tough for Sonja. They had learned some English at her old school in Serbia, but it wasn’t enough to keep the other kids from laughing at her accent, or adults from frowning and tilting their heads when she asked questions. Sometimes it was easier not to talk at all.

Her older cousin Filip, who lived with Sonja and her parents, got a job at the movie theater across the street while he got his papers in order to go to college. As his English steadily improved and Sonja got more quiet, he suggested to her father that she spend time in the theater after school, to hear more American voices and practice her pronunciation in private. Glancing over at his daughter, who was huddled on the couch with her battered copy of _The Hunger Games_ , pretending not to listen, he nodded.

“But only movies appropriate for children,” he said firmly, wagging a finger in Filip’s face.

So in the heat of the summer, Filip got permission from the theater manager for Sonja to sit in the back during kids’ movies to practice her English, as long as she never took any snacks from the concession stand and helped sweep up after particularly messy shows.

She spent a lot of afternoons watching _Nanny McPhee Returns_ and _Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore_. Eventually Filip took pity on her and said she could watch _Step Up 3_ and _Scott Pilgrim Versus the World_ as long as she didn’t tell her father, just to hear how real teenagers talk.

It was amazing to hear how differently the British children spoke compared to the dancers in New York, although Filip told her that they weren’t real New Yorkers (all actors apparently came from California). So she listened, and practiced, even trying to read _The Hunger Games_ aloud with a perfect American accent.

Her parents smiled and nodded their approval, and gave Filip a few dollars to buy her a reward for her hard work. He came home one day with a book in his hands, the edges worn from use.

“The movie came out earlier this year, but we can get it from the library later,” he said, handing it over. The glittering letters on the front said _The Lightning Thief_.

“Meet Percy.”

Percy was awesome. He couldn’t read well, and didn’t always make the best decisions, but he never gave up and would do anything for his friends. When Sonja went around with her bow (an old tube of cardboard) to save the world (the fire escape and alley behind their apartment), she would let an imaginary Percy tag along and be her loyal sidekick. Her English got better, and her arms got stronger from carrying both books around and drawing her invisible bow. She even started looking forward to the upcoming school year. Maybe she could do this after all.

While _The Sorcerer’s Apprentice_ or _The Owls of Ga’Hoole_ played in the background, she practiced introducing herself, looking straight at the other person’s face, and smiling. New school, new people, new Sonja. No big deal. She hoped.

When her brand new sixth grade teacher called her name, she replied confidently, “Present. But I go by Kat.” She sat up straight and smiled, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world to say.

Miss Simmons nodded. “Alright, Kat. Your seat is on the second row, between Michael and Abby,” she added, pointing. Sonja nodded, grabbed her bag, and walked calmly to her new seat, her heart bursting with joy. Not a single person had laughed.

~

**March 2012**

After counting down for months, Sonja was about to get the most amazing birthday gift _ever_.

 _The Hunger Games_ had been made into a movie.

It was all anyone could talk about at school (“It’s finally here, Kat!”). Sonja could barely focus on her work. Soon, she would get to see Katniss’ life in District 12, and her struggle in the Arena, bow drawn and ready. Her parents were treating Sonja and her friends to ice cream on Saturday afternoon, followed by the main event (tickets courtesy of Filip).

They were discussing the final guest list over dinner, Sonja nearly bouncing with excitement in her seat.

“Abby is out of town this weekend, so it will be me, Lauren, Alexis, and Josh,” she said, poking at her stuffed cabbage. “If that’s okay with you.”

“Who is this Josh?” he father asked, eyeing her suspiciously. “There are boys coming?”

“He’s Alexis’ brother, Tata,” Sonja explained, blushing. “It would be rude not to invite him. And we’re just friends, anyway.” As a soon-to-be thirteen year old, she gave a lot of thought to such things.

“You will all be on your best behavior,” her father said firmly, pointing his fork at Sonja. “And you will watch them,” he added, swinging his fork Filip’s way. They both nodded, and they all went back to their food. When Sonja next caught Filip’s eye, he winked.

The movie was even better than she’d imagined. The world felt so real, and the girl they cast really brought Katniss to life. Sonja cheered, and gasped, and cried, wishing the journey would never end. As she left the theater with Filip and her friends, gushing over the film and already anticipating their next viewing, her face sore from smiling, she knew this was a night she’d never forget.

~

**May 2012**

The Battle of New York shook the city to its core.

Sonja had been at the theater, doing her homework until Filip’s shift was over, when _The Pirates! Band of Misfits_ suddenly stopped playing. As she looked around, wincing as the lights came on all at once, Filip rushed in and pulled her to her feet.

“We have to leave,” he said tersely, helping Sonja shove her books into her backpack and pulling her by the hand toward the emergency exit.

“Something’s happened.”

They squeezed onto Filip’s moped and zoomed out of town, taking turns a lot more sharply than her father would have liked. They had to weave through cars where traffic had come to a standstill, but Filip never stopped, and never looked back.

“They’re saying it’s aliens,” he called over the wind as they left the chaos of the city behind them. “Uncle called and said we should get out of the city and wait somewhere safe.” She just held tight to his hands on the handlebars; the otherworldly explosions and screeching would haunt her dreams for months.

They stopped at a hospital in Yonkers when they were almost out of gas. Filip had thought her mother’s hospital might have coordinated with others in the area, but the nurses hadn’t heard anything from the Bronx. They tried to call Sonja’s parents, but no calls could get through. The days they spent there, sleeping on the floor and eating stolen snacks from a smashed vending machine, waiting to hear if they’d made it out, were the longest of Sonja’s life.

She didn’t like to think about that time between leaving the theater and going home with her parents. The therapist she talked to once at the community center said it took time to process trauma, and that it was important to keep living her life, which was easy enough: post-battle New York was a busy place. Her mother worked seemingly endless shifts at the hospital, pipefitters like her father were suddenly in high demand, and she and Filip spent the summer outdoors cleaning up public parks after the alien tech had been cleared away. The projects kept her thoughts away from dark places, and her busy hands were making a visible difference. And there were things she and her friends would much rather talk about than their own trauma.

They weren’t alone in the universe, but they weren’t alone in the fight, either.

“No _way_ you were there,” one boy said to another while their work crew cleared branches and debris from a baseball field.

“Oh yeah, I saw the whole thing,” the second boy said, shaking his bangs out of his eyes. “Iron Man flew right over me and punched a bunch of aliens. It was crazy.”

“Yeah _right_.” The other kids scoffed, and the boy grinned and shrugged as he tossed a branch onto the nearest tarp. Filip rolled his eyes at Sonja as he and another girl dragged a loaded tarp to the truck at the edge of the field.

“It would be so cool to be Iron Man,” the first boy added. “He can fly and shoot missiles-“

“And at the end of the day he gets to be Tony Stark!” a boy from Sonja’s building chimed in, and everyone laughed. “It’s a win-win.” She was pretty sure his name was Ray.

“Who do you think is the best Avenger, Ramone?” the first boy asked. Close enough. “Iron Man or Captain America?”

“C’mon, Trev, Iron Man, no contest!” Ramone laughed.

“Iron Man,” a girl pushing a wheelbarrow full of trash chimed in. “He can _fly_.”

“But Cap’s strong,” another boy said, cursing as he struggled with an unwieldy branch. “No one can push him around. And Thor can fly without a special suit of armor.“

“No one’s going to push any Avenger around,” Trev said, helping Ramone roll out a fresh tarp.

“Black Widow is the best, right Sonja?” said Tatiana from the top floor, grinning. Sonja smiled back as the boys continued to argue cheerfully. _Kat would have told them about Hawkeye,_ she thought, raking the litter around them into a pile and slowly revealing the battered diamond under their feet. It warmed her heart to see the city returned to them, one hard-fought inch at a time.

At the sound of their community mentor’s whistle, they headed back to the trucks to drop off their supplies and head home, leaving their discussion for another day.

Their world had been shaken, and the hardest and most amazing thing to grasp was that heroes had their backs.

Sonja would always admire Katniss, her inner strength and the things she stood for, but this was different.

Hawkeye was _real_.

~

“Kat thinks Hawkeye is the best Avenger,” Alexis said at lunch one day; their debate over how Captain America never loses his shield was winding down with no easy answers. Josh and Lauren went back to their pizza, having heard it all before, but Abby, Sam and Sarah turned to Sonja in surprise.

“Seriously?” Sarah asked, sharing a look with Abby. “But Captain America has super strength, and Black Widow-“

“C’mon, you just need Hulk to crush everything in his way and you’ve won the fight,” Sam cut in. “What do you need them for?”

The others chuckled; Sonja just smiled, flipping her braid over her shoulder. She had worked out a solid imitation of Katniss’ braid after the first movie, and her friends were quick to copy the look.

“There’s a lot more to saving the day than just going in and destroying everything,” Sonja said. “While Cap and the others run over to help, Hawkeye keeps an eye out for more danger; they know he has their backs, so they can focus on the fight. And did you see the video of Iron Man throwing him into that flock of flying robots hanging out over the Hudson last week? That’s teamwork. And super brave,” she continued, amazed, as always, to find her audience so enraptured.

“He still doesn’t have any powers, though,” Sam grumbled, taking a sip of his chocolate milk.

“He’s with the Avengers, so he _must_ be a hero, super or not. They put him on their team for a reason, right? So he doesn’t have the gear to fly away if things go south, or Cap’s ability to heal fast if he gets injured. But he jumps into the fight anyway,” she concluded, “because it’s the right thing to do.”

She took a bite of the sandwich her mother had packed for her as the others mulled that over.

“You’re right, Kat,” Lauren said finally, “Hawkeye’s pretty cool.”

“She just likes him because he uses a bow and arrows!” Alexis chimed in, and the others chuckled.

Sonja laughed. “Well _duh_. The coolest hero gets the coolest weapon.”

~

**October 2012**

The latest trend in after school activities was walking up and down the streets of Manhattan and hoping to stumble across the Avengers in mid-fight. It was the most exciting hobby she could possibly have, so _of course_ her parents were dead set against it.

“It’s just walking around! And most people never even see them,” Sonja argued, hanging the last of their laundry on the fire escape. “What’s wrong with a little exercise?”

“Those kids are literally looking for trouble,” her mother said sharply. “They don’t think about how dangerous it is. What if a piece of building fell on you? Or a car next to you catches fire? Why don’t you help out around the neighborhood instead, at the pet shelter maybe-”

“I can handle it,” Sonja shot back.

“There’s a difference between being brave and being foolhardy,” her mother cautioned. “Don’t you think a hero would take advice from their mother?”

 “It would be safer in a group anyway!” she groaned, flopping onto the couch. “Why can’t I go hang out with my friends?”

“The friends who don’t know your name?” she asked tersely, shoving groceries into the cabinets. “Who call the house but never ask for Sonja?”

Sonja turned away, her face burning. “It’s a nickname,” she said for the umpteenth time, but her heart wasn’t in it. “It’s just easier- to spell,” she amended, but it was too late. Sonja could tell from the sad frown on her face that her mother knew _exactly_ what she meant.

~

After the final bell, word spread that some sort of portal had opened up about ten blocks over, and Sonja was giddy at the thought of seeing the Avengers up close. Her friends had already headed for the buses, but she couldn’t resist: steeling herself, Sonja shouldered her backpack and ran against the flow of the crowd, even though her heart quaked with each step. The police were holding back a crowd near the front of the office complex, so she backtracked, going a couple blocks over to approach from the back.

She watched in horrified fascination as the air shimmered over a drab office building, a creature coming into view now and then, only to be knocked down by the nearest Avenger. She scanned the building, watching for… there. A dark figure on the roof shot an arrow at one of the larger creatures, who shrieked and lunged forward; the man jumped nimbly aside, dodging another creature at the last minute, and swung over the edge, firing an arrow in midair as he swung between bulky window frames to control his fall. He landed in a barrel roll, barely missing a beat up old Mercedes, and Sonja jogged over to meet him.

“You’re Hawkeye!” Sonja gasped, immediately wishing she had thought of something cooler to say.

“Ow,” Hawkeye replied, wincing as he got to his feet.

“You’re… wow. Are you okay?” she asked, then added, “Can I help?”

“Not that I don’t appreciate it,” he replied, eyeing the side of the building as he planned his route back to the top, “but you should probably steer clear until this blows over. Yes, I’m on my way,” he continued in a firmer tone, “just taking a detour.” He turned back to Sonja, and looked surprised to see her still standing beside him. “I thought someone would’ve set up a perimeter by now. Seriously, it’s not safe.”

“But that’s what heroes do, right? They put other peoples’ safety before their own.” She stood there, practically vibrating with excitement, as he looked from her, to the roof, back to her, then down at his watch. “Please?”

“Okay, see that door?” he asked, pointing. “You can hold it open and wave people over, since the emergency exit’s busted.”

He rolled his eyes at the disappointment on her face. “It’s not glamorous, but it’s important. You want to help, right?” She nodded, and his eyes softened. “You don’t have to be super to be a hero.”

As Sonja thought about that, Hawkeye smacked at the little device in his ear and said, “What, I can’t be inspiring sometimes? And that’s a _great_ line: Laser Hands said it at a press conference last week. Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” He turned back and asked, “What’s your name, kid?”

She blinked up at him, thinking. “I’m Sonja,” she said clearly, standing up a bit straighter.

“Okay, Sonja, here’s another one: sometimes being a hero is just showing up.”  Adjusting his arm guards, he added, “Don’t get trampled, okay?” With a lazy salute, Hawkeye jumped onto the Mercedes and used the momentum to reach a ledge on the second floor, swinging himself from floor to floor until he was back on the roof. Sonja watched him for a moment more before remembering she had a job to do, and bolted for the door.

~

“Hey, I was thinking,” Sonja mumbled, watching her mother pull the comics from the newspaper for Filip to read when he came out for breakfast. Her mother turned, face open and curious, as she refolded the paper and set it by her father’s plate.

“I’d like to do more volunteering, now that the teen work crews are over,” she continued, pouring her cereal with far more care than usual. “Do you think they still need help at the hospital?”

Sonja glanced up at her mother, who sat very still, her eyes unusually bright.

“They always need help,” she said finally, passing Sonja the milk, then giving her hand a squeeze. “I’ll get the paperwork for you.”

“Thanks, Mama.” She ate her cereal quickly, laughing with Filip over the comics while her father lamented the headlines, then excused herself from the table. Checking to make sure her braid was still in place, she squared her shoulders and went out to face the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am not and expert on the Avengers, New York, mopeds, or Serbia, but I tried my best. I hope you enjoyed it : ) I'm seeing Infinity War on Tuesday, and am prepared to cheer like a maniac the second Hawkeye appears on-screen.


End file.
